A truly wonderful thing about living in New York City: events like the New York Public Library’s Live from the NYPL series.
Last night, they hosted Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s finance minister amidst the country’s financial crisis, and Noam Chomsky. I don’t give Noam Chomsky a bio because to me he’s a living legend, but if you’re not familiar, according to the event page, he’s “widely credited with having revolutionized the field of modern linguistics,” which is no exaggeration. He’s also a controversial political intellectual who writes and speaks about power and democracy. I’ve been a fan of his for decades. I’m not sure we align 100% on ideology, but I completely respect the integrity of his positions, which have always struck me as well-researched, well-reasoned, and consistent.
After a wonderfully frank discussion about Greece’s economy, power in Europe, and the nature of democracy, they opened the program up for audience Q&A. And sooner or later they got what was probably an inevitable question during this weird election cycle: someone asked Noam Chomsky to weigh in about the “Bernie Sanders phenomenon.”
My fiancé Robbie got a great little video snippet of Noam Chomsky as he weighed in on Bernie Sanders.
#NoamChomsky weighs in on @BernieSanders' impact at tonight's #livenypl (cc @Albertoriva ) pic.twitter.com/X2frEsfUGJ
— robbie quinn (@robbiequinnnyc) April 27, 2016